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Just been watching the press conferences over the last few days and there seems to be plenty to get excited about towards the end of the year.

Microsoft – So Project Natal is now just called Kinect. I cringed at first but now I think the name is starting to grow on me, but I’m not sure if I’m convinced about the technology yet. It all seems a bit “too good to be true” and I have a horrible suspicion that the motion tracking involved won’t be precise enough to be used for anything other than fitness simulators and party games. Saying that, I really hope to be proved wrong on this!

Also, Gears of War 3 is looking amazing.

Nintendo – Well I actually missed most of this because it was apparently more important to go to Morrisons to get petrol and food. Misguided priorities there, eh!

I just get back in the house to witness the announcement of the Nintendo 3DS though. I have to say that I’m absolutely gagging to have a go on one of these as it sounds like Nintendo may have gone and done it all over again! Apparently the top screen on the new handheld is displayed in full 3D requiring no glasses using an auto-stereoscopic display. (Just google that term if you want more information, it’s takes a fair amount of explaining!)

My first impression was that it may be a bit of a gimmick that doesn’t really work that well. But then I remembered I thought the same thing about a dual screen handheld with a touch screen and a new console with motion control previously. So it’s probably safe to put a bit of trust in Nintendo by now as they’ve proven that they know what they are doing. They were also ready to let the whole E3 audience get up close and personal with the new hardware too which implies they are suitably confident about the technology.

New Zelda on Wii. (Damn, I need to catch up on all the previous Zelda games too!)

Sony – I’m starting to get a bit hyped up about Playstation Move now. My big issue with the Wii-mote is the lack of precision. You can play Wii Sports fine but the tracking just isn’t good enough to work in a first-person shooter or any other serious game. I’m hoping the blurb is accurate and that this is not the case with Move though. The technology certainly seems viable and believeable.

It’s great that Sony seems to be making a serious effort to push this technology into hardcore games too.

Strong support for the PSP. Well, I have to say I’m sceptical on this one as we had the same speech last year and apart a few new (albeit great) games it hasn’t really been pushed at all from what I can see. Come on Sony! Splash out on some proper TV advertising and make people more aware of the console. The PSP game section in GAME has almost disappeared!

Killzone 3 looked great. Would love to see this running in full 3D for myself!

Portal 2 and Gabe Newell from Valve. WOW! I didn’t see that one coming at all. At least Gabe had a bit of a joke and didn’t mention anything about sticking forks in anything! Portal 2 is definately one to watch and it will be interesting to see how they integrate the PS3 version into Steam.

There. My initial impressions on E3 anyway. I’ve probably forgotten loads more I wanted to comment on too. That’s the problem with E3 – Too much stuff going on!

Dead Space 2 as well…. I want!

Isn’t it great when an Xbox 360 advert reminds you of Little Big Planet on the Playstation 3: http://www.xbox.com/en-GB/live/bestoflive/connectnow.htm

It is a great tune though and it’s called Get It Together by The Go! Team.

The original album: Thunder, Lightning, Strike is well worth picking up too!

I had a bit of bad luck followed by a bit of really good luck the other week.

My XBox 360 DVD drive had been reporting intermittent “unreadable disc” errors on random discs for the past few weeks. I’d been persevering with it but it was the final straw when I bought Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 and it said there was a fault with an absolutely pristine disc.

With a sigh I trundled off to register the console for repair on the XBox site. I tapped my serial number into the site and Microsoft said the console was already out of standard warranty! Huh! I’d only had the thing six months so this was slightly annoying to say the least. I couldn’t ring them either as it was a Sunday.

Plan B. I’d bought it from Sainsbury’s and I had the receipt so I thought I’d just take it back there. Result! Swapped it over with no arguments and actually gave me an brand new black 120GB Elite in exchange for a dusty old broken cream 60GB Premium.

I had to sacrifice my hard earned save games but an extra 60GB of hard drive space for nowt was worth it. My warranty is also reset to 12 months again and this time the Microsoft site agrees!

It doesn’t happen very often but it’s nice when it does!

I’ve just finished the absolutely excellent Batman: Arkham Asylum and would recommend it to anyone and everyone! If you don’t have it already, go out and buy it. Right now!

It’s not often that Microsoft gives you the opportunity to earn cold, hard gamerscore for nowt. But if you don’t mind installing the Games for Windows LIVE client from http://www.microsoft.com/games/en-us/live/Pages/livejoin.aspx you can also get Tinker for absolutely nothing which includes 200 points worth of achievements.

Tinker is an isometric 3D style puzzle game which you’ve probably seem a hundred clones of previously but it’s polished, good fun and worth a download.

By the way, the system requirements for Tinker imply that it needs a 3GHz processor and a Geforce 6600/ATI 1300 graphics card… My own system is substantially below that specification and it runs fine!

Because it certainly seems like it. For example:

• Steam are selling some really good games at stupidly low prices here: http://store.steampowered.com/early-holiday. The THQ complete pack for £26.49 is very tempting but I’d never get around to playing all the games.
• XBox Live is allowing Silver accounts to play online for free all weekend as part of Xtival at http://www.xbox.com/en-GB/xtival09winter/.
• Sony are giving us some free Uncharted 2 downloadable content as confirmed by C&VG
• To celebrate Killzone’s fifth birthday it’s a Double XP weekend for Killzone 2 on the PS3 and there is the possibility of some free DLC at killzone.com

Not bad eh!

Well, the Modern Warfare 2 release didn’t go too badly eh! Launch party in London’s Leicester Square and it sold 1.23 million copies on the first day in the UK alone (according to gamesindustry.biz).

I wasn’t planning on buying it but I couldn’t walk past it in Morrisons when it was priced at only £25.99. (So much for the £55 everyone was expecting to pay!)

Unfortunately I haven’t been able to get it online at all tonight. I’m hoping this is just a temporary glitch and Infinity Ward haven’t underestimated the amount of people trying to get online. (Surely they’d have to be completely stupid if that were the case though?)

Well, there have been far too many games to play this month!

A decent chunk of it has been spent on Uncharted 2. Amazing game and, you’ve heard it all before, but it definately sets a few new benchmarks on the PS3.

If that wasn’t enough I grabbed the Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City disc (had a few GAME points stored up so managed to get it for only £20!).

I was pleasantly surprised by “The Ballad of Gay Tony” as it pushes GTA back into the sort of complete madness last seen in San Andreas… Base jumping, drug wars, stealing trains carriages with helicopters and even a gold SMG! If you thought GTA IV took itself too seriously this might be worth another look for you.

It’s Modern Warfare 2 day tomorrow but I think I’m going to hold off on that one as I’ve still only barely started COD4! Too many games, not enough hours in a day

There is a bit of an outcry going on at the moment about new Silverlight-driven advertisements coming to XBox Live and the subsequent replies by Major Nelson on the subject.

But if Microsoft starts showing adverts like this people might have a point!

Warning: That link does contain vomiting so if you are easily offended – Don’t click it!

(It’s not particulary likely that Microsoft will load puke-related ads on the XBox dashboard but it was a humourous way to report two stories in one post!)

It’s been well over a week since I last posted anything and I’m ashamed to say it’s because one of those evil supermarket corporations took advantage of my complete lack of any willpower and sold me an XBox 360… At a very reasonable price.

So now I can put my 2p worth into the XBox 360 vs. Playstation 3 debate!

I’ve only had a week with the 360 so far but the boring conclusion is that they are just about evenly matched. Both consoles and the services that come with them have their strengths and weaknesses.

Here are a few quick observations:

Hardware: Both machines are big and heavy. The PS3 being the larger of the two. The fans in the XBox are loud and it gets even louder when a DVD is spinning up in the drive. The PS3 is virtually silent with hardly any drive noise.

XBox Live vs. Playstation Network: A Gold subscription on XL will set you back £40 a year but PSN is completely free online. XL does have many more games on offer though and a movie store which is available in Europe. On the other hand Sony now has an impressive free music video service on the PS3 called Vidzone.

XBox Live Arcade vs. PSN Games: I really like the idea that every game on XLA has a demo version. Demos of PSN games may not always be available and are often only downloadable weeks after the full version of the title has been released.

New Xbox Experience vs. XrossMediaBar: This is just my personal opinion but I prefer the PS3’s XMB. It just looks a bit more classy and seems quicker to navigate with. To be fair though, there is much more content on XL so it’s reasonable that some of it can seem hidden away. NXE has gone a bit more family-friendly-Wii-avatar style which is okay if you like it.

XBox Achievements vs. Playstation 3 Trophies: These are basically one and the same. The big advantage of achievements is that every single 360 game supports them, where as trophies are only supported by the most recent PS3 titles. I do think the trophy system is a little more evolved in that you have a total number of trophies and an RPG-style trophy level. This means you can quickly deduce that those people with a high trophy level and relatively low number of trophies have put in the effort to chase the gold and platinum awards. In contrast, people with high trophy counts but low levels are mainly collecting the easier bronze awards. Maybe I analyse this too much though!

Games: What fanboys love to argue over constantly! Well, personally I can’t see much difference in games between either platform. If you think back a year ago the PS3 was struggling with a lack of titles but now it has a very respectable library, even if it is not as large as the 360’s back catalogue.

I could go on forever but the main point of this post to to say: Stop arguing about which is the best machine. They are both great! The fact that both machines (and the Wii) exist and are successful is the best situation for gamers. It means Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo need to continue to work hard and innovate to stay at the top of their respective games (pardon the pun!).

It’s worth noting that when the world first embraced mobile phone technology on a large scale the development of mobile phones went crazy. Big phones went small. Monochrome LCD screens were replaced by full colour displays. Full internet access is now available and almost every phone is now an mp3 player.

Now games are finally being accepted by the rest of the world. What is going to happen to games technology over the next few years?